NATION The $1.6 billion National Fire Plan, approved by Congress last September, promised a cooperative, interagency approach to fire management (HCN, 9/25/00: Fires bring on a flood of federal funds). But the government’s in-house watchdog says that promise is far from fulfilled. In his testimony before a House subcommittee on July 31, General Accounting Office […]
Fire plan gets a scolding
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Four-wheelin’ for fee
COLORADO Known as the “Jeep Capital of the World,” Canyon Creek, just south of Ouray, Colo., leads four-wheel-drive enthusiasts into alpine areas that are world-renowned for their abundant wildflowers and sweeping vistas. But if you’re planning to visit, don’t forget your wallet. This summer, the Forest Service has begun charging $5 per vehicle to enter […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Who mans forest flows?
NATION Streams on Forest Service land may soon be a little more vulnerable. For the past eight years, the Forest Service has been able to insist on “bypass flows,” or minimum instream flows, when towns and other water users divert streams on national forests. The agency says it has the right and responsibility to demand […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
The Latest Bounce
Cara might yet become the girl she used to be (HCN, 11/6/00: CARA’s not quite the girl she used to be). Last year, Congress whittled the $3 billion Conservation and Reinvestment Act, or CARA, down to a $1.6 billion appropriation in the Interior budget. Now, a resuscitated CARA has been approved by the House Resources […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Minnow melee continues
NEW MEXICO As the battle for scarce Rio Grande water pits central New Mexico farmers against the three-inch silvery minnow (HCN, 8/28/00: Shaky truce on the Rio Grande), a controversial federal-state agreement is aiming to ensure the survival of both species. Under the three-year plan, signed June 29, the state will sell 100,000 acre-feet of […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
A former oilman says no to drilling in the Arctic
I come from a long line of Texas earth-divers: prospectors, trappers and explorers who have spent their lives in the successful pursuit of oil and gas. I am proud of our part in supplying the world with energy – in feeding this country – and am proud of how today’s geologists have survived the volatility […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Heard around the West
One hundred and ninety million years ago, give or take a few millennia, a meat-eating dinosaur walked to an oasis in a place now close to Vernal, Utah, and bent down for a drink. The 12-foot-tall beast was heavy, and its clawed, three-toed feet sank deeply into what is now wonderfully preserved sandstone rock. Scores […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Cows aren’t wanted here
Dick O’Sullivan stands in a lush meadow near Mount Lassen. What he sees is excellent habitat for an uncommon and drab little bird called the willow flycatcher. It’s also plush green forage for his cows. He thinks there’s room for both. The upper third of the meadow is Forest Service land. The lower third is […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Forest Plan has plenty of appeal(s)
VALLEJO, Calif. – If you didn’t know better, you’d think the Sierra Nevada Framework did something terrible to burglar-alarm companies. The staff at Giotto’s Alarm Tech in Tulare, Calif., accounts for 10 appeals – more than the Forest Service received from all the timber companies combined. “We’ve got a real activist office here,” says the […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
‘The fire group is in a real building process’
Berni Bahro, 43, directed the fire analysis team for the Sierra Nevada Framework. He is a fire specialist in the Region 5 office of the Forest Service in Sacramento, Calif. “The information that we used to plan fuels management for the Framework was the best we’ve ever had. But at the site-specific level, there are […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Sierra loggers get the ax
EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. – It is not yet 10 a.m. on a rainy spring morning, and a computer in the Wetsel-Oviatt sawmill already reads 797 trees turned into boards since dawn. Sawdust fills the air as workers wearing ear plugs roll white fir through an assembly line of blades. This mill in the hills […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Fire managers play a subtle new game
SPRINGVILLE, Calif. – “I’ve been a pyromaniac ever since I lit my shirt on fire when I was five,” says Brent Skaggs. He’s not quite kidding. Thirty-four years later, Skaggs still plays with fire, but now he has two fire engines, 40 drip torches, a crew of 22 firefighters and he carries a million-dollar liability […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Modern-day Muir copes with victory
Craig Thomas, 56, has been hanged in effigy, had his property vandalized and his life threatened. Yet he says he feels like the luckiest guy living in the Sierra Nevada: “I actually get paid to keep this mountain range intact,” he says. Thomas works for the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, a coalition of 72 […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
A plan for the Sierra: 20 years in the making
1981 The U.S. Forest Service starts to consider the impact of intensive logging on the California spotted owl. 1984 The agency recognizes the California spotted owl as a “sensitive” species, vulnerable to extinction. 1991 Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson writes a series on the forest-health crisis in the Sierra Nevada. “The Sierra in Peril” wins […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
The way it works
The final Sierra Nevada Framework is the guiding planning document for 11 million acres of national forest lands in California. It covers the Humboldt-Toiyabe, Modoc, Lassen, Plumas, Tahoe, Eldorado, Stanislaus, Sierra, Inyo and Sequoia national forests, and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. In a nutshell, the plan will: Reduce the total allowed timber harvest […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Sierra Framework treads between protection, treatment
While everyone agrees that the Sierra Nevada’s vast forests and its creatures are in trouble, no one knows for sure how the U.S. Forest Service can restore the range to a condition that inspires rather than alarms – not even the authors of the agency’s 3,100-page Sierra Nevada Framework. The usual characters are present – […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Drawing a line in the mud
Coloradans weed out tamarisk before it takes over
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Neighbors get nasty in New Mexico
Is Deirdre Wolf a martyr or a menace?
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
A-LP gets federal A-OK
Colorado’s huge water project poised for funding
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Utah town goes ‘U.N. free’
Controversial law highlights growing culture clash in Utah’s land of Dixie